by TJ Berry
“In any case, they took everything out of my pockets when they put me in here,” said Jenny. “Including the bone and the horn. They’re going to scoop up as many Bala as they can carry and we’ll likely be back in FTL.”
The door opened and the guards came in with Findae. He flailed and bucked as they shoved him toward the holding cell.
“You must bring me back up to the bridge. I demand it,” he yelled.
Gary stood up. Bào tucked himself in closer to Ricky for safety.
The Sisters shoved Findae into the cell. He turned and slammed his hooves on the bars furiously. The guards backed away.
“In the service of the future,” said one of them by way of explanation as she left the room.
Gary stepped up to Findae, who foamed at the mouth as if he’d run a race at full speed.
“Take a breath. What is it?” asked Gary.
Findae swallowed hard. “After you left, they began targeting their weapon. It’s aimed right at the heart of our settlement,” he said.
Gary rubbed his face and took a seat next to Jenny again. He looked haggard and tired. Ricky leaned down to Bào.
“So they just found out that their dwarf friend is in the Sisters of the Supersymmetrical Axion,” she whispered. “Which is a quasireligious–”
“I know who the Sisters are,” replied Bào.
“Take off that ridiculous disguise,” Findae cried toward Bào.
“Everyone here knows who you are.”
Bào cast a reluctant glance at Ricky, but one did not disobey a direct order from the king of the unicorns. He let his illusion drop. It was a relief, actually, like shedding a pair of too-tight shoes after a long day. He stretched out like a cat in his new old skin.
“Oh my,” said Ricky.
“I told you I wasn’t who I seemed,” said Bào, resigned to the fact that she would likely remove her arm from his shoulders now. This wasn’t the way he intended to tell her about his real identity. He looked up, expecting her to be dismayed, or at least surprised. Instead, a little half smile played on her face.
“Thank the freaking gods, I was wondering why I was getting all gaga over some doughy little twenty-two year-old kid. This is much better,” she said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. Bào was stunned into silence.
“Bào Zhú,” said Jenny from her corner of the room. “The exotic animal dealer.”
Bào straightened up and slipped out of Ricky’s grasp. “Bào Zhú the necromancer. One of several at the Siege of Copernica Citadel.” He extended his bare arms to show her the shrapnel scars and to her credit, she understood immediately.
“Were you the one who cut my ship in half?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Were you the one who shot me full of screws?” Bào said by way of reply.
“I take it you know each other,” said Ricky, putting her hand flat on Bào’s back, as if to calm him.
“There’s more,” said Findae, turning away from the bars to face everyone in the room. “The Sisters have ordered the other two necromancers on this ship to the bridge to assist in the destruction of our village.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jenny. “Why would the Sisters attack your village? They’ve always been the Bala’s greatest advocates.”
“Boges says there’s an invasion of parasitic aliens – a type we haven’t encountered yet – who have infiltrated both humans and Bala and are shaping their behavior to their will. The only way they can be destroyed is by incineration.”
Jenny’s eyes widened, but instead of answering, she cocked her head to the side, listening.
“I don’t believe you,” she said quietly.
“And how do these parasites move from person to person?” she asked.
“Boges mentioned physical contact,” replied Bào. He wondered if Ricky was infected and sitting so close to her was spreading the invaders to him. Then he decided he didn’t care.
Jenny leaned back into the corner. “Then I think you all had better not touch me,” she said.
Ricky sat up, delighted. “Do you have a brain parasite, Jenny Perata? Can I see it?” she asked.
Gary got up and knelt down just out of Jenny’s reach.
“Explain,” he said simply.
“I was on a generation ship and they had dead Bala on board and I was looking for horn and came across some hidden in the teeth of some old elf, but when I got his body back to my ship, his corpse followed me all over, even into the shower, ugh, and I ended up hiding in the smuggling compartment with his body and then he got inside me.” She took a breath.
The room was silent for a long minute. When Gary finally spoke up, Bào had already begun his third prayer for the intervention of Unamip. “Nobody touch Jenny,” he said.
“Are we going to incinerate her?” asked Ricky.
“No,” said Gary firmly.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” muttered Findae.
“No,” repeated Gary, before turning back to Jenny, who looked stricken and paler than before. She played with the spiral pendant around her neck.
“He said he was a ghost,” she offered.
“He helped fix my heart.”
“No one can fix your heart, Jenny Perata,” called Ricky.
Bào elbowed her. As much as he didn’t like Jenny, it wasn’t right to kick a captain when they were down.
“Does he have access to your abilities?” asked Gary.
“He shows me things, memories and nullspace, but he can’t control my physical body.” She paused and hissed to herself. “Shut up. Everything you’ve told me is a lie.” She looked back at Gary. “I think he’s weak from being stuck in a corpse for all those years.”
“Good,” said Gary. “If you feel that starting to change, even the slightest bit, you let me know. And I reiterate. No one touch Jenny. All right. There are four necromancers on this ship,” said Gary. “Only two of them are up on that bridge.”
Bào wasn’t sure who the fourth one was until Jenny shook her head.
“Oh no. I tried to break a tiny little antenna off the Kilonova and tore off the entire bottom of the ship,” she said.
“Was it perhaps the invader misdirecting your energy?” asked Findae.
“No, I just don’t have a handle on this power yet,” she said.
“That was you?” asked Bào, with a cross between wonder and horror.
“Yeah,” said Jenny.
Ricky mouthed something to Jenny that Bào was able to mostly make out but didn’t quite understand. Something something disaster gay. In response, Jenny lifted her middle finger.
“You tore the bottom half of this ship off like a grunt opening a can of beans,” said Bào. “And you don’t think you’ll be able to help stop the Sisters? I didn’t stow away on a starship just to get all the way here and watch them blow up the Bala.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Ricky cheerfully. “Their weapon will be ready to fire in five minutes,” said Findae.
“Bào, can you stop it before they scorch the surface?”
“I can,” said Bào, pushing up his sleeves and standing. He let his stiff fingers dangle through the air.
“I’m here if you want to tear the ship apart,” said Jenny.
“We might need that later,” said Gary.
Bào reached and felt the Kilonova’s weapon gathering energy at the front of the ship. He wished he’d had more time to study its schematics and determine an easy way to disassemble it without harming others. As it was, he found several power connections that could be easily reached along the outer edge of the weapon’s focusing lens. He concentrated on that area and began to pull the cables out, one by one.
“Do it faster,” said Findae, also watching in the null.
Bào dug invisible fingers of energy into the hull around the lens, twisting and pulling. It popped out easily. These things were designed to withstand impacts from outside, but they were also modular pieces that needed to come apart for maintenance.
A wave of naus
ea hit him and he lost his grip on the lens. The concoctions he’d taken with Ricky earlier in the evening were beginning to wear off and leave one hell of a hangover in their wake. He swallowed hard.
“One minute,” he said. “I’ll get this.”
“We don’t have a minute,” said Findae.
Bào refocused and tried again. He wrapped his tendrils of energy around the superheated lens and pulled. Wires and connections popped free. People screamed. He tossed the lens out into openspace. It tumbled end over end until one of the stoneships intercepted it and batted it like a plaything. It shattered on impact, sending fragments careening out into openspace. The stoneship sulked back into formation with the others, its toy destroyed.
“What’s happening?” asked Ricky.
“I got it,” said Bào. “The lens is disabled.”
“But you got more than just the lens, right?” asked Jenny.
“Because on those designs, the lens is just for focusing the beam at one particular point on the surface about twenty meters across. The laser will still work without it, just at lower power across the wider area.”
Damn. He’d actually just made the targeting area larger. Bào went outside of himself again to take another shot at the laser apparatus. As Jenny had predicted, it was still gathering power, just in a wider, less concentrated beam. He reached deeper into the machinery and attempted to wrap his invisible energy around the power generator at the center.
Pain tore through his head. He let go of the generator and pulled back to the holding cell. He involuntarily tried to run, trying to get away from the threat. Nausea overtook him again and he hit his knees on the hard metal flooring. Ricky appeared at his side. She took his arm.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“What happened?” asked Gary.
“The other necromancers are protecting the weapon,” said Bào.
“Let me try again.” He grimaced. “One moment. I have to… use the facilities,” said Bào, cursing his tiny bladder, which was suddenly screaming at him. He wondered if that was a trick of the Kilonova’s necromancers as well.
“Captain Perata, you distract them while Bào makes another attempt,” ordered Findae.
Jenny pursed her lips. “You don’t understand. Last time, I aimed for an area two meters wide and took a chunk out of the ship the size of a rugby field. That laser spans multiple decks, which means I’d likely depressurize about half the ship,” she said.
Bào tucked himself around the privacy divider and was grateful when everyone continued talking as if they couldn’t hear him back there urinating for an inordinately long time.
“You take out the Kilonova or they destroy our settlement,” said Gary. “I don’t think being delicate is a concern right now.”
Jenny sighed so loudly that Bào heard her over the splashes. He peered over the privacy divider.
“Why does it always come down to me? First the Summit, and now here. Why do I always have to choose?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed and she looked like she was listening. “I suppose,” she said.
“What?” asked Gary.
“Just the elf ghost parasite talking inside of my head,” she replied. “He also wants to stop the laser. Seems we’re all on the same page here.”
“Then I think you’d better take aim,” said Gary.
“Fine. I’ll have a go at the laser,” she said. “Because fuck the Reason and fuck brain parasites and fuck lasers.”
Bào flushed. The water rose instead of falling. Sewage spilled over the edge of the toilet.
“Oops, I forgot,” cried Ricky. “We disabled the sewer system.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cowboy Jim’s Last Stand
Kamis was running in overtime inside of Jenny’s head, talking as fast as her mind could process the words.
Don’t listen to them. I am on your side. We must stop this weapon from reaching the surface. Look down at the atomic level, as far as you can go. Don’t get distracted by the humans around the weapon, they chose to be there and you have every right to stop them. Do you see that box that the power is feeding into? That’s where the–
“Shut up, Kamis. I’ve seen one or two power generators in my lifetime,” said Jenny. “I know what to do. Just be quiet.”
She scooted forward on the bench as far as she could go. The smell of the overflowing toilet was rank, but at least the cheap floor grating in here allowed the sewage to flow down into the access area below deck. Jenny didn’t want to be in here if the gravity went off.
This would be easier if you could stand, said Kamis.
“A lot of things would be easier if I could stand,” said Jenny.
“I can help you up,” said Gary.
“I’m fine,” said Jenny. “Kamis, the brain parasite, needs to settle down.” Jenny mimicked Bào’s necromancer motions, moving her arms through the energy in the room like water. It didn’t work for her. She felt like an idiot. She got in a more comfortable position, with her elbows on her knees and her chin resting in her hands like a contemplative-yet-angsty teenager.
That is not the optimal– began Kamis
“Shh,” hissed Jenny.
It was harder to get a handle on nullspace energy when the FTL drive was off. It was still there, but it coalesced in smaller wisps that were more difficult to corral. Bào joined her. His large octopus of energy undulated outward from across the room. One of those tentacles of light reached through the ship toward the laser array. Other tendrils, those of the two Reason necromancers, raced toward him. Jenny reached out to block them, throwing her force against their extended energies.
She felt something crunch, far in the distance.
“Hull breach on decks thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen,” announced the ship’s computer. “All personnel on those decks seek shelter.” Jenny pulled back and opened her eyes.
“Bollocks,” she said.
“I can’t get smaller than that without ripping pieces off the ship.”
“You are terrible at this,” said Findae.
“I got really close that time,” said Bào. He looked angry with her. Jenny didn’t blame him. The first time they’d met, she’d shot him full of nuts and bolts. The last time, she’d left him adrift in openspace. It wasn’t the right time for an apology, but she could at least have his back.
“One more time,” she said. “I’ll make it as small as I can.”
Bào closed his eyes and Jenny did the same. Both of their energies pushed toward the front of the Kilonova. Bào headed toward the laser array, which glowed with fully charged power, even though it was half-disassembled and showering sparks. Jenny’s reached for the necromancers positioned near the breach on deck sixteen.
Their energy headed for Bào, trying to ensnare and crush him. She intercepted it and nudged them back away from him as gently as she could. One of the necromancers hit the back wall of deck sixteen with such force that his body left an imprint in the steel before he hit the floor. Jenny shook her head and refocused on the other one, who was trying to slide her energy around Bào’s neck. The necromancer tightened her grip and Bào started choking. Jenny instinctively shoved her away, but this one countered with a blast in her direction.
The flush that went through her was like stepping into a sauna. It began to bake her bones from the inside out. She started sweating into her uniform jacket. That second necromancer was doing something less focused than a direct attack. Jenny didn’t know where to hit back to stop the onslaught.
Nearby, Bào writhed on the floor as Gary and Ricky knelt next to him. Blood trickled out of his ears.
Just move her, said Kamis.
“I tried already,” said Jenny, watching both the null and the cell. Kamis had been right. Keeping your eyes open meant you could process twice the information.
You’re stronger than she is, just push, said Kamis.
Jenny pushed and the necromancer hit the airlock window. Her falling body left a pink smear down the glass.
>
Bào gasped in a great gulp of air, then went still. He wasn’t taking out this laser any time soon. As Jenny reached for the laser array, it discharged toward the planet below. In nullspace, a green column of energy hit the planet, blacking out dozens of tiny pinpricks of lights in the settlement below. Jenny dug her energy around the laser and pulled. The weapon went off course, searing a crooked zigzag of death across the planet. Jenny’s first thought was of Kaila, praying that she was out of the path of destruction.
With a shudder felt throughout the entire ship, the laser array came free of the Kilonova. The energy beam shut down. Jenny was drenched with sweat and Bào was lying on the floor shivering.
“Did you stop it?” asked Findae.
“Sort of,” said Jenny. “It hit the settlement, just a short burst. I tried to contain the damage as best as I could, but…” She took a deep breath. “I crushed one of the necromancers.” She gagged at what might have been the smell of raw sewage but also might have been her conscience.
You prevented the deaths of thousands, said Kamis. Jenny could do the math, but that didn’t make the equation any less terrible. She’d killed far too many people in her life. She was getting tired of all the souls resting on her shoulders. Not to mention the parasitic one stuck in her head.
“Can you get us out of this cell?” Gary asked Jenny.
“That is a terrible idea,” said Findae.
“Probably,” she said. She looked toward the door, concentrating on pulling at the bars of the cell. They came together as if a giant hand had compressed them into a single column of metal. The entire wall fell to the floor with a clang.
Well done, said Kamis. She blasted him with all of her irate feelings and he went quiet.
Ricky lifted Bào Zhú like a limp doll.
“Where to?” asked Ricky.
“I have a ship in the hold if we can get there,” said Jenny. What she meant, and didn’t say, was if they could get her there, because she damn well wasn’t crawling all the way back up to the main hold.
Gary knelt down in front of Jenny again, this time a bit closer.
“I need to pick you up,” he said. “Can you contain the parasite?”
